Last of the Time Lords, Ch1: The Mysterious Whistling Pocket-Watch
by Des-and-Fi
Summary: This story is written like a Doctor Who episode, but it takes place in an alternate universe, where the Tenth Doctor (aka David Tennant) meets Ember, a girl that a lot of strange things happen to. She doesn't understand why, until she finds an ancient-looking pocket-watch in her attic, under all her deceased mother's things, and one day it starts whistling.


LAST - of the - T ime L ords / The mysterious Whistling Pocket-Watch / Ember

Chapter 1/The Mysterious Whistling Pocket-watch

~ Taken from Ember's Diary

It started off as a normal day. But then, it wasn't.

I'm walking through Central Park with my camera, like I always do after a rough day at school. I take pictures of squirrels, trees, the sky, whatever I see. It relaxes me, taking my mind off a bad day. And today was especially bad. Like, I-never-want-to-go-back-there bad.

It's not like this is a new feeling, though. Strange things have always happened to me. I don't know why. Sometimes I think my dad knows more than he's telling me, but when I ask, he always avoids it, like he's trying to hide something from me… Or maybe I'm just overthinking it.

One of the first "episodes" I remember was bring-your-pet-to-school day in first grade. The teacher thought it would be fun if everyone brought their pets in and showed them to the class, and then we all could read stories about animals together with our pets.

Well, that's not what happened.

I was riding my tricycle to school, a box in the front basket where I'd put a frog I found the day before.

I'd written his whole story, how he used to be an alien from some far-off planet where giant reptiles and amphibians lived, but then he did something very bad (so bad, in fact, that he wouldn't even tell me what it was), and he was banished! They took a rocket and aimed it at a black hole, then blasted it from the surface of the planet.

By some miracle, the Earth's rotation caused it to be in the exact position where the rocket crashed into the ocean. But as the rocket sank and eventually exploded, the pressure caused him to shrink and shrink until he became a tiny frog, washed up on Coney Island. That's where I found him.

So I took him to school with me, grinning the whole way, so excited to share his story with my class. Maybe after hearing how much more exciting and unique my pet was compared to theirs, they'd want to be my friend,

That's all I wanted, really. A friend. Someone I could talk to. Maybe then the voices would stop… The voices, always the voices… Singing… Sometimes yelling in what sounds like another language… I want to help them. But at the same time, I want them to go away. They scare me. So much so that I never told anyone about them. I didn't know what they'd think.

Until I met the Doctor. But, that's another story. This story, actually.

But I'm in the middle of a flashback! Sorry, I get distracted easily. Getting back to the Incredible Mr. Frog…

To make a long story short, the other kids' pets didn't like me. The cats hissed, the dogs whined and barked, one even growled at me at tried to eat me alive!Or so I thought. I was only six. It ripped my pretty dress with the lily pads and flowers on it, the one I wore special for the day I showed my frog to the class, the one my mom bought for me before she died.

I ran out of the room crying, hugging the box to my chest, and the teacher called after me but I didn't care. I ran and ran and hid in a back corner of the gym, behind the bleachers, listening to the older kids playing some game.

It was weird though. I could've sworn the dog didn't growl. I mean, he did. But it wasn't just a dog growl. It was like a human voice, growling "What are you? Why are you here? Leave these people alone. You don't belong here." But it wasn't completely… human. It was like a dog trying to speak English, but he didn't get it completely right. But I never said that out loud. Because that's impossible. Dogs can't talk.

Eventually, my teacher found me. She didn't even yell at me. She just sat down, handed me a cup of water and a chocolate chip cookie she said she baked herself, and I showed her the story about my frog. Smiling as she read it, she told me it was very creative and it was too bad I didn't get to share it with the class.

I asked her why the dog bit me, but she didn't know. "Sometimes, dogs will bite strangers if they feel like they're being threatened," she said gently.

I frowned. The dog found me threatening? I wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but I knew it wasn't good. And I guess that's why my dad never bought me a puppy. Maybe he knew it would react like that to me...

So, that was the first time something strange happened to me. Over the years, things happened more and more. Mostly just the voices. Sometimes they're so loud, and seem so real, that I think they are. But then I look around, see no one else responding to them, and hide my head in my arms, knowing they're only in my head.

Sometimes, there's a name… "Thea." "Thea, sweetheart… My baby, can you hear me?" But I don't understand. Who is this woman? What happened to her baby? And why is she in my head?

And it's not just the voices. Sometimes, I can… convince people to do things. I can convince my dad to buy me something, or convince someone to give me what I want. Almost like hypnotism, but that stuff isn't real. Is it?

And I can talk to animals. Well, not really talk to them. That's impossible. Right? Plus, I'm usually too scared to say anything back when they talk to me. I'm afraid it would mean I'm crazy. Mr. Frog is the only one I actually respond to, because I trust him, and we're alone in my room.

He's getting old now. He tells me he's going to die soon. And I tell him he's not allowed. And he laughs, a soft, croaky kind of laugh.

Anyway, those are just some of the things going on in my head. The things I don't understand. The things I ignore, try to run away from…

But I can't run away from the dreams. Dreams of a far-off land, strange people wearing strange clothes, and sometimes there's a blue box… It's like another life. But those are just dreams. Everyone has weird dreams.

In high school, I was introduced to marijuana. I loved it at first. It took away the voices, replacing them with strange visions and hallucinations. And

I was cool when I smoked. I had friends. This guy, Munchie, he's the one who showed me first. He always shared his pot with me.

Munchie isn't his real name, of course. We just called him that because he'd always get the munchies real bad after we smoked and he'd raid the entire fridge or cook like 3 main courses for a meal.

Or he'd text me at 4am and say we had to go to Taco Bell. "Can't it wait until morning?" I'd tell him. And he'd be all "No way, man. I need me some tacos now." And he would show up at my house baked out of his mind, going on and on about how the teddy bears want him to sacrifice his pet gerbil to Satan, but he doesn't want to… And I'd tell him not to listen to those teddy bears, they're just the spawn of Satan trying to bring him into this world, and nobody wants that.

We'd laugh and eat tacos and it was all good. It was all fine.

Until the voices came back.

Louder this time.

More than just yelling. They were screaming. Screaming for their lives.

Nothing would get rid of it. Not the pot, not being with my friends, not even sleep would dim the sound. I started having nightmares. Terrible nightmares. About fire and destruction and strange, robotic voices…

I'd wake up sweating, have anxiety attacks, try to avoid sleep for as long as I could until my brain gave up and I passed out.

It was a really rough time.

And the pot just made it worse. It made the screams louder until I couldn't bear it anymore. It actually got to the point where I had an extreme paranoia attack at Munchie's house. Worse than the times we thought the government was spying on us. Worse than the time we hid under the table for 2 hours because we thought the police were outside, and then the high died down and we realized we were being silly. No, I'm talking about me screaming "Get out of my head!" and crying, grabbing my hair to the point of almost pulling it out, and rolling around on the floor screaming.

I didn't want to smoke after that.

I lost all my friends. Munchie would still talk to me occasionally, but all he does is smoke, so when I stopped, he didn't want to hang out as much.

And the worst part was, no one understand. Because no one knew. They don't know what it's like to have voices screaming in your head day and night, and there's nothing you can do about it because you don't know where they're coming from. You don't even know if they're real.

And it's not like I could tell anyone. They would just think I'm crazy.

People think that enough as it is.

Then, one day, the voices died out. The nightmares stopped. But I was afraid to smoke pot again in case they came back.

So anyway, now I'm coming to the end of my senior year. I haven't heard from Munchie in months. I think he might be in juvie, or the mental hospital here for "disturbed and distressed teenagers." I think I heard something about his mom finding all the pot he had stashed in their basement.

I sit under a tree and shake my head, like I can shake out the memories. But they don't go away. And I can't help feeling like I brought this on myself. If I hadn't gone crazy, if these voices weren't in my head, I could still have friends.

But I could also be in juvie with them.

So I guess this is best.

I just feel like I don't belong here. Like there's something better out there, someplace I'm missing, someplace I should be instead of here.

I stare up at the sky and think about all those stars we see at night.

My dad used to tell me I was a fallen star. When I was little. He told me I fell from the sky and it was the best day of his and Mom's lives. But those were just stories. He probably doesn't realize I remember them.

Anyway, back to what happened today. It was bad.

I found this cool, ancient-looking pocket-watch in the attic, under all Mom's old stuff. It had these cool circle designs on it. I couldn't figure out how to open it, but I liked it. It was almost like it was whispering to me.

So I wore it to school for about a month. That was a mistake.

In the middle of class, I heard a voice. The first in months.

"Hello?"

I looked up. I looked around at my classmates. Realizing it was just in my head again, I tried to ignore it and focus on my test.

But every once in awhile, I heard strange things coming from the locket. Things like "living plastic," "Dalek," "the Doctor," and "the Tardis." Things like "Time Lord," "Rose!", "the Face of Bo," "Mickey the Idiot," "parallel universe." None of it made sense; it was like I was only getting little snippets of someone else's life, like when you're talking to someone on the phone but it's a really bad connection and you only get half of what they said because it keeps cutting out.

But today… Today it got worse.

Today it started glowing. And whistling,

And this time, everyone could hear it.

It was in the middle of a test, the quietest time of class. I felt the watch getting warm against my chest. I pulled it out from under my shirt and looked at it. It was glowing. And it was getting brighter. And hotter.

"Ouch!" I dropped it as it burned my hand. The teacher glared at me, but I just kept looking at the pocket-watch. Because now it was whistling.

The kid next to me looked at me, then at the watch, confused.

And then the girl in front of him looked. And the cute guy in front of me.

All staring at me and the whistling pocket-watch.

Then my teacher stood up and yelled, "Where is that noise coming from?"

That's when I really realized it wasn't just in my head this time.

Everyone could hear it.

I tried to hold back a grin. Maybe I'm not crazy, I thought hopefully, as I looked down at the mysterious whistling pocket-watch once again.


End file.
